8 "Fun" Summer Activities That Are Actually Horrible

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Rocks. Sticks. Plastic-friction burning your exposed flesh. Grass-friction burning your exposed flesh when the plastic part runs out. There is no part of slip-n-slides that is even a little fun. They are literally a sheet of plastic that you put on the ground, and then you fling your (BASICALLY NAKED) body on that sheet of plastic. Why. Why do we do this. It is bad.

"Y'know, I'd really like to watch Ghostbusters again, but I want to do it in a place that's really muggy and humid, while being bitten by a lot of mosquitoes, and I'd also like to not really be able to see or hear the movie because I'm stuck sitting on a patch of wet grass behind a bunch of people who are loudly eating and talking because they think it's somehow okay to talk during a movie if the movie's outside. I would definitely rather do this than watch the same movie in my own air-conditioned and private home."

Food, music, whatever. Festivals sound fun because they sound like fiesta, which is Spanish for party, and parties are supposed to be fun. But don't be fooled. Festivals are actually just a chance to get sunburn, heatstroke and blisters. Also, sometimes you have to stay in a separate "Beer Area" to chug your $12 cup of beer before you can rejoin the general population. Also, port-a-potties.

For some reason, it is impossible to walk past a street fair without aimlessly wandering through it just "to see what's going on." But deep down, you know what's going on. A bunch of different kinds of fried foods, overpriced hemp-woven handbags, and a lot of people shoving each other. There has never been anything other than these three things at a street fair.

What? It's already too hot when you're just existing, like, in the air. Why do you want to submerge your body in a substance that is HOTTER than the air? P.S. Since 2009 it is technically illegal to be in a hot tub unless you are a reality television star or an elderly man in a Speedo weirding out everyone else at the hotel pool.

It's amazing how much you trick yourself into doing HORRIBLE things just because they are free. Like standing outside in the sun for hours to see a band you only kind of like. But it's worth it, because someday when you're on your deathbed, you will definitely be like, "yep, I'm so glad I wasted that whole day of my fleeting youth being miserable on a long line. And thank God the concert was free and didn't cost ten bucks that I would've literally never missed and got to instead spend on a shitty half-sandwich from Panera bread! I am ready to die."

Ooooh. Aaaaah. Okay, that's enough. Don't really need to watch lights in the sky anymore, I get it. Oh, what? They're going to keep going for another half an hour, making me feel guilty about the environmentally disastrous amount of heavy metals being released into the soil and water so that I can watch some pretty explosions? And I'll find it impossible to resist taking a picture of them even though I KNOW it'll turn out horribly? And I'll participate in an inane conversation about which series of blinking lights is my "favorite"? Awesome.